Application of locally available materials for the treatment of organic polluted water

Abstract

Several types of water treatment technologies including adsorption are now being used to treat polluted water. In this paper the removal of phenol by adsorption will be discussed. Activated carbons are successfully applied for purification of potable water and the removal of organic pollutants in wastwater. This paper is concerned with a low cost approach to treating waste water that is significant especially for those countries where oil palm is an available agricultural product like Malaysia, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Thailand, Papua New Guinea. In the coastal region coconut is an available agricultural product and activated carbon prepared using coconut shell is also an economical method of water treatment. The materials used in this study were Commercial Activated Carbon (CAC), prepared from coconut shell and Modified Oil Palm Shell (MOPAS) of 1 to 2 mm diameters. The surface area of CAC and MOPAS was 38.5 m2/g and 38.2 m2/g respectively and the iodine number was determined as 674 and 454 for CAC and MOPAS, respectively. From the study the result shows above 70% removal efficiency for 5 mg/L and 40% removal efficiency for 20 mg/L of phenol solution. The performance efficiency will be discussed based on batch test, following Freundlich adsorption isotherm. The results indicate that CAC exhibits a higher adsorptive capacity (Kf of 0.079) as compared to MOPAS (Kf of 0.048). Hence a better removal efficiency for CAC at lower concentration of phenol. Results from column tests show a better adsorptive capacity for CAC (2.73) as compared to MOPAS (2.48).

Treatment of Oily Wastewater Using Advanced Solar Photo-Catalytic Oxidation Process Using Titanium Dioxide Doped Nano Fibers

“…Solar photo-catalytic oxidation, which is influenced by both the number of active sites and the penetration of irradiation light, must therefore pass through a maximum at optimum catalyst loading. Also, the decrease in adsorption density with increase in adsorbent amount is due to the high number of unsaturated adsorption sites [46][47][48][49]. It should also be noted that the optimum value of catalyst loading is strongly dependent on the type and initial concentration of oil and the operating conditions of the solar photo-reactor [46][47][48][49][50].…”

“…Also, the decrease in adsorption density with increase in adsorbent amount is due to the high number of unsaturated adsorption sites [46][47][48][49]. It should also be noted that the optimum value of catalyst loading is strongly dependent on the type and initial concentration of oil and the operating conditions of the solar photo-reactor [46][47][48][49][50]. In our study, the optimum catalyst loadings of TiO2NFs is 0.5 g/l.…”

Ammoniacal nitrogen and COD removal from semi-aerobic landfill leachate using a composite adsorbent: Fixed bed column adsorption performance

“…5, which demonstrates that the COD concentration in the effluent complies with standard A of Malaysia's regulations for wastewater (50 ppm) [19] for the first 80 min of breakthrough time. The efficiency of the column could also be calculated by using Equation (3) as suggested by Eckenfelder [16,23]: where E is the column efficiency, H is the column height and H c is the critical column height (obtained from the Bohart-Adam equation at t = 0). Leachates contain large amounts of organic contaminants which can be measured as chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biological oxygen demand (BOD), ammoniacal nitrogen, halogenated hydrocarbons, and suspended solid, significant concentration of heavy metals and inorganic salts [2,3].…”

Continuous adsorption of lead ions in a column packed with palm shell activated carbon

“…It is only in recent years the interest to palm shell has increased, mainly due to the research findings that this material can be an excellent source of high quality and low cost activated carbon. However, most of the studies on palm shell activated carbon (PSAC) are focused on the parameters of the activation/carbonization procedures [3][4][5][6][7][8][9] and so far only few examined the adsorption capacity of this material [10][11][12]. A recent study conducted by our research team [13] showed that palm shell activated carbon has high capacity to adsorb lead ions compared to other types of activated carbons.…”